Chapter 7: Morgan

Every day was worse than the one before. Morgan had only been there for two days, but it didn’t take long for the pattern to become clear.

She wasn’t merely aroused. She wasn’t merely horny. Those were the words she might have used before the Complement. They were entirely inadequate to describe what she was now experiencing. On some level, such sensations were invigorating, but they went on hour after hour, day after day, and there wasn’t a single thing she could do about it.

She couldn’t even touch.

There was a children’s game called “the floor is lava,” which Morgan had played with her sister when they were both young. The goal was to move through a room without touching the floor. Morgan felt like she was now playing a new, horrible variant of that game called “your body is lava.”

Her core burned as if it were made of molten lava and just like lava, she couldn’t touch it. Even though touching wouldn’t bring release, would only intensify her frustration, restraining herself was a never-ending struggle. And, as bad as that struggle was, it wasn’t the worst part. The worst part was that it didn’t go away or fade into the background over time.

From the moment she woke up to the moment she went to sleep, her unfulfilled sexual need was all she could think about. Her body twitched. There were moments when she had to pause and catch her breath from the overwhelming sensations coursing through her. She unconsciously swung her hips as she walked.

She couldn’t get used to this. It wasn’t possible.

As she watched the other inmates she could see it in their eyes and the way they moved: none of them could get used to it either. Her insatiable libido was here to stay; it would never diminish and there was no way she could ever acclimate to what it was doing to her.

No one talked about it, though. It was as hard and fast a rule as any laid down by the guards. To complain was to wallow in self-pity, and to remind everyone in earshot how awful their lives were.

Instead, they all tried—unsuccessfully—to forget about their predicament, to pretend that everything was normal. Rogers periodically put her hand to her head, closed her eyes and let out a long sigh. Carmichael ground her teeth so fiercely it could be heard from across the room. Morgan found herself repeatedly curling and uncurling her hands into fists.

Every woman locked in this place, locked into their own bodies, shivered and squirmed, exhibiting all manner of nervous ticks as the effects of the Complements took their toll.

Something as simple as wiping after using the toilet required a delicate balance between getting clean and going too far. She had to be careful to not so much wipe as blot. Even then, it was enough to send a shock of arousal through her body.

Showering was even worse. The first day Morgan had either been so sleep-deprived she hadn’t thought about it, or her desperation had gotten worse since then. On her second morning in Marysville, she was very aware of what it was doing to her.

The ever-present scent of citrus was more noticeable in the showers than anywhere else. It was such a horrible little humiliation, the way the smell of her constantly flowing juices broadcast her arousal to the world. As if everything was fine because it was citrus and not a more conventional female aroma.

When she got out, what would she tell people? “Yes, I just love smelling like bathroom cleaner. Isn’t it a delightful perfume?”

The water flowed over her naked skin, caressing her like the lover she so desperately craved. Before the Complement, a shower could be pleasurable but not overwhelmingly sexual, not like this. She moved the washcloth with deliberate, perfunctory strokes to clean her chest and sides. In order to clean between her legs, she had to use a slow, careful motion to minimize the stimulation.

As gentle as she tried to be, the pressure against her body teased her with the promise of the pleasure that was beyond her reach. She felt the hard, unfamiliar bump of the gem embedded in her body as she moved her washcloth over her aching, sensitive flesh. Then she was clean and she had to face yet another long, terrible day without relief, along with the certainty that tomorrow would be exactly the same.

In her current state, her mind twisted everything she encountered into a metaphor for something sexual, but the banana they served for breakfast was nothing short of mockery. As she gulped down the firm, ripe fruit, she tried not to focus on the erotic symbolism. She tried not to dwell on how badly she wanted to wrap her lips around a thick purple phallus with throbbing veins and just a hint of pre-cum at the tip.

That’s how she imagined Derek’s cock.

The symbolism clearly wasn’t lost on the other inmates, either. Some of them were going through the motions of performing fellatio on their unpeeled bananas. Morgan wasn’t so far gone that she had any desire to blow a banana. Then again, she’d only been there a few days.

She directed her thoughts to Derek, her one ray of hope. He believed her, or at least he said he believed her. It wasn’t the same thing as believing in her, but it was more than she could say about anyone else.

He would show up for the conjugal visits. Of course he would. He was a straight, red-blooded American male with a pulse. Men always wanted sex, right? The problem was that while men might always want sex, she needed it. If Derek didn’t submit the necessary paperwork or overslept, he could roll over, jerk off and apologize later. She didn’t have that option.

Unfortunately, the earliest time they would allow her a conjugal visit was over a month away.

After her second day in the domes she returned to her cell to find a letter from Derek with more bad news. He had looked up what was required to schedule a conjugal visit, and it wasn’t straightforward. The bastards here seemed to have deliberately made it as difficult and convoluted as possible. Derek had to fill out a long form before every visit, then two weeks later she had to fill out another form, and then wait another three weeks.

Five weeks total, bare minimum. Every hour with the Complement was a trial, and those five weeks might as well have been five centuries. She needed relief now, but that didn’t change the reality that it wasn’t physically possible.

All day she had been sitting on a hard seat that pressed against her body in a very distracting way. She felt like she was about to lose her mind. Even though she was now back in her cell with an hour and a half of “free time” before dinner, it wasn’t much of an improvement.

She lay on her bunk, her thighs tensing, squeezing her sopping-wet panties beneath the material of her prison jumpsuit. From across the room, Rogers let out another long sigh as she read a book.

Laying on her stomach, she could feel her sensitive nipples pressing against the mattress through her shirt and bra. What if she massaged them, just a little? It wouldn’t be as intense as touching further down, would it? Maybe that would be okay?

On second thought, that sort of thinking was probably an express ticket to solitary. She rolled over.

“Look, I’m not trying to bitch,” Morgan announced to her cell-mates, “but I have to ask. What helps?”

Rogers looked up from her book and made a face. “I read. Sometimes I write. Get distracted, don’t think about it, and don’t talk about it.“ She reached under her bed and tossed a fat book over to Morgan. “Here. The Count of Monte Cristo. Read.”

Morgan picked up the book. Before she could open it she noticed that Carmichael had gotten up and was heading out of the cell.

“Where are you going?”

“Gym,” Carmichael grunted. Morgan had noticed that Carmichael didn’t say much. When she did speak, she used only a few words at a time.

Morgan’s less talkative cell-mate was older, probably in her mid-forties. Unlike that disgusting guard, Dunne, who had first escorted Morgan to her cell, Carmichael wasn’t fat. She was merely short and stocky, built around a wide frame. Given her physique, it was hardly surprising she chose to make use of whatever exercise equipment they had here.

While Morgan had never been an exercise fanatic, the idea of burning off some of her frustration through physical activity sounded more promising than sitting on her bunk, trying to read. “There’s a gym? Can I join you?”

Carmichael shrugged. “No one’s stopping you.”

As Morgan got up and moved to follow Carmichael, Rogers called after them. “You’re both crazy. So you know, when you work out, you feel it.”

She knew exactly what Rogers meant but chose to ignore her. Every time Morgan stretched her legs she could feel her muscles straining, pulling against other sensitive areas of her body. On the other hand, Carmichael chose to visit the gym anyway and Morgan was ready to try almost anything at this point. Doing something seemed a better alternative than stewing in her cell.

The gym was not impressive. It was small and it smelled. Ominously, it smelled of citrus. Did it come out in sweat too?

“Hey, is the smell from sweat, or... ?”

Carmichael didn’t turn around. She shrugged again. “Both.”

There was only so much exercise equipment, and that meant the inmates lined up to use it. Carmichael joined a long line for one of the weight machines. The other machines had equally long lines. There was only a short line for the treadmills. Neither of the exercise bicycles were in use. In retrospect, she probably should have wondered about that.

As Morgan headed toward the bicycles she saw a few heads turn towards her. Initially, she put that down to curiosity at someone they hadn’t scene in the gym before. However, after climbing on and pumping the pedals, she immediately understood.
As she pushed her left leg down on the pedal, her groin pressed hard against the seat of the bicycle. A wave of raw passion flowed over her, radiating out from between her legs.

“Oh, fuck.“

Morgan’s exclamation was followed by laughter and amused tittering from the other inmates, more of whom had now turned to look.

Damn, that felt good. She wanted more. She wanted that erotic fire to fill her to the brim and pour over her body. All day in the domes she’d wanted more, and here it was. Even if it couldn’t go far enough to satisfy her, it was something. It wasn’t even a direct touch, but pressure through several layers of clothing. It was intense, but she could handle it. Of course she could handle it.

She pumped the pedals again, then felt her lower body clench down reflexively in response to the throbbing pleasure. She could do this. Everyone always told her ‘no,’ and they were always wrong.

Pump. Clench.

Pedaling the bicycle might get her dangerously aroused, but it was also a potential outlet for her frustration. She didn’t want to sit in her cell. She didn’t want to stand in line quietly. She wanted to move, to fight back at her circumstances. She couldn’t fight back directly, but she could fight the bicycle and what it was doing to her.

Pump. Clench.

“Morgan,” her parents had said, “you can’t go out, you have school.” Well, fuck them. She’d gone anyway.

Pump. Clench.

“Morgan,” they said, “your grades are too low, you need to lower your expectations.” Well, fuck them. Before she was arrested she was making more money than her sister. Anything was possible with sufficient determination, with the will to get it done.

Pump. Clench.

It was a damn exercise bicycle, not something out of a medieval dungeon. No one told her what she could and couldn’t do, Complement or no Complement.

Most of the other inmates had lost interest at this point, but she noticed the guards were watching her intently. More people who expected her to fail. Well, fuck them all.

She sped up. Pump, clench, pump, clench, pump, clench.

Her arousal intensified, the rocking motion grinding her clit against the hard plastic surface of the seat. Even through the fabric of her clothing it was overwhelming. She channeled that burning sexual need into rage, channeled that rage into moving the pedals.

It wasn’t the first time she’d burned off anger by pedaling a bicycle. Morgan’s parents bought Lorelei a car for her sixteenth birthday, but naturally Morgan got no such accommodation. That left her begging for rides or, more often, riding a bicycle. Every time she pushed down on the pedals she imagined she was kicking her sister’s face.

She didn’t know whose face she should be kicking right now, but she would find them. Kevin was dead, but that asshole was all muscle, no brains. There had to be someone else. Kevin did have a beautiful muscular body, not to mention a nice big cock, though, didn’t he? A glorious, monster cock he was happy to share with her. Oh god, how she would love to feel that inside her right now.

No, she had to stop thinking about that. Even if Kevin were alive and in here with her, it wouldn’t do her any good. She had to focus on something else. She could focus on revenge. There was someone else responsible out there, and she would find them. No matter what it took, she would find them and make them pay for what they did to her.

She would make them pay.

She would— Oh shit.

Morgan had been steadily speeding up, grinding against the seat faster and faster. Now she was starting to get tired, which meant she would have to stop soon. The lust-fueled rage that coursed through her was receding, leaving only the hollow, painful emptiness of unfulfilled need. She’d been warned that’s how this worked, hadn’t she? Starting was easy. Stopping was hard.

Her tiring leg muscles were at odds with her insatiable libido. Muscle fatigue was slowly, inevitably winning out. She slowed but didn’t stop.

Morgan’s grip tightened on the rubber handles of the bicycle. Pleasure and exhaustion coursed through her, pulling her in two different directions at once. Her lower body convulsed in a spasm of desperation. She needed more, had to have more, but couldn’t keep up a pace that would deliver it.

She could, of course, disengage from the pedals, reposition herself and grind into the seat without the effort. Alternatively, she could use her hands. Well, for a few seconds, anyway. If she tried either of those options those guards watching her would probably intervene.

Morgan gradually brought the pedals to a stop, as every fiber of her being insisted she was being robbed of the satisfaction she so desperately needed. She staggered off the bicycle, her hands balled into fists, her fingernails biting deep into her palms as she resisted the urge to continue what she’d started.

A guard moved swiftly towards her, stun baton in hand. “You’re done. Get your ass back to your cell before you earn yourself a straitjacket.”

Morgan nodded, as she struggled to regain her composure. The guard didn’t respond, staring Morgan down as she walked out of the gym and back towards her cell. Rogers raised an eyebrow but didn’t say a word when Morgan returned.

She plopped down on her bunk, covered in sweat and breathing heavily. She tried not to focus on her body, on how badly she needed the stimulation between her legs, needed to be touched, needed to be filled.

Morgan gritted her teeth. Don’t think about that. She needed Derek, yes, she needed him to help her find whoever framed her. One way or another, she would have her revenge. She turned her thoughts to what she would do when she caught up to those men, and she was reasonably certain it would be men, responsible for her current predicament. If her fantasies of retribution were dominated by the sadistic, sexual torture of those men, so what? They were pleasant thoughts.

When Carmichael returned, Rogers motioned with her thumb towards Morgan. “What happened to her?”

“Bicycle.”

“Seriously?” Rogers asked, turning to Morgan. “Not like I’ve tried it, but I hear the way the seat hits your—”

“Yes,” Morgan cut her off, not bothering to sit up. “Yes, it does.”

Neither of her cell-mates offered a response.

Morgan’s legs ached as she followed Rogers and Carmichael to dinner. Now that she had had calmed down, it was a good ache. The discomfort came from exhaustion and distracted her from her other needs. Next time she would wait in line for one of the treadmills, which would accomplish the same thing without the side-effects.

She was sufficiently distracted thinking about the best way to exercise without repeating her experience with the exercise bicycle, that she was taken by surprise when someone familiar sat down next to her.

“Hey, Strawberry.” It was Amato. Her voice was more subdued than Morgan remembered.

After Amato hadn’t appeared the previous night or earlier that day, Morgan had almost given up on seeing her again. She had forgotten to look for Amato when she first got to dinner that evening, but here she was.

Bringing up where Amato had been for the past few days was probably a bad idea. Instead, she chose a safer topic.

“So, what do you think?” Morgan asked. “Is the food shittier here or in county?”

“Can’t argue, this food is shit,” Amato said, dipping her spoon into an over-cooked mass of vegetables. “Still better than drinking it through a straw.”

Morgan wasn’t sure exactly what Amato meant by that. The words sounded almost as if she were threatening to punch her teeth out, but that didn’t match her delivery. Amato was in here because she hit someone with a two-by-four. Maybe she hit whoever it was in the mouth and was comparing her situation to theirs?

Carmichael, who was sitting nearby, must have seen the look of confusion on Morgan’s face. The older woman leaned over and whispered in Morgan’s ear: “Can’t eat in a straitjacket. No arms.”

“Do you want to talk about it?” Morgan asked.

“No. She doesn’t.” Carmichael stepped in again, and this time elbowed Morgan hard in the ribs. It hurt more than she expected. Carmichael was strong. “Why did you call her Strawberry?” she asked Amato.

“My strawberry blonde hair, obviously.” Morgan would have preferred listening to Amato bitch about solitary rather than discuss the pie incident yet again. She had hoped the sarcasm would deflect the question, but Carmichael stared at her blankly.

“You used to dye it?”

“She’s fucking with you,” Amato told Carmichael. “She hit her sister in the face with a strawberry pie.”

“Just what is your deal, huh?” Morgan burst out, raising her voice “Yes, I hit her with a pie. Yes, it was hot. Yes, she got burned. No, I didn’t realize it was hot, and no, I didn’t mean to burn her face. Any particular reason you feel the need to define my existence with that one incident?”

“Look around.” It was Carmichael, not Amato that responded. This was the most talkative Morgan had ever seen her. “We’re all defined by how we got here.”

Morgan waved an arm at Amato. “Oh, so I should start calling her Two-by-four? And you, what should I call you?”

“Mother.” A frightening look passed across Carmichael’s face, a strange hybrid of malevolence and satisfaction. Then, having already finished her meal, she left.

“Any idea what she meant by that?” Amato asked.

“No clue, Two-by-four.” Morgan glanced at Carmichael’s retreating back before turning back to Amato. “Mother doesn’t talk much.”

“Wait, she’s not—”

“No, she’s not my mother.”

“Damn,” Amato exclaimed, not letting the subject drop. “In here? With, like, everything? That would be fucked.”

“Yeah, so much better that both my parents died five years ago.” Amato kept bringing up every topic Morgan least wanted to talk about, and it was getting on her nerves. She decided to return the favor. “I know, why don’t you tell me more about your boyfriend. What was his name, Bryan?”

“Fuck you, Strawberry.” Amato spat the words, then grabbed her tray, stood up and stalked over to another table to finish her meal.

Even though she remembered Amato getting upset whenever anyone mentioned her boyfriend, Morgan hadn’t expected her to walk off like that. Maybe Morgan had been a bit too hasty to take offense, but well, with the Complement she had far too much unwanted energy flowing through her and nowhere to direct it. It made her want to lash out. It probably made Amato want to lash out too.

With both Amato and Carmichael gone, Morgan was left alone to finish her meal. Rogers sat nearby but was already engrossed in a conversation with another inmate about the selection of books in the library. Morgan didn’t really feel like talking anyway.

She returned to her cell and tried to take her mind off her annoyance with Amato, and her ever-present sexual frustration by reading the book Rogers had given her. The first chapter was about some men discussing the latest voyage of a trading ship in the late eighteen-hundreds. The story took place over a hundred and fifty years ago, but it reminded her of the office politics back at Konnor Interactive.

The book was boring, the language old-fashioned and stilted. A note on the cover indicated it had been translated from the original French into English, which probably had something to do with that. Worse, it was reminding her of her life when she was free.

When Morgan reached chapter two, in which the main character paid a visit to his loving father, she decided she’d had enough for the evening. She didn’t want to read about that.

Lying in bed, trying to fall asleep, her thoughts shifted away from the book and back to the one thing she wanted, needed as badly as an orgasm: revenge. She didn’t know who, or why, but she would get there. And, when she found them...

Fantasies of retribution drifted through Morgan’s mind, distracting her, allowing her to fall asleep more easily than she had the previous two nights.

Like every night with the Complement, her dreams were full of frustration. This time she was trying to pedal a bicycle up a hill on a hot summer’s day. Her body was covered in sweat as her sex burned with need. Somehow she knew when she reached the top she would finally be able to come, but no matter how hard she worked the top never got any closer. Lorelei flew past her, riding in her shiny new car and waving, as Morgan continued to climb the never-ending hill.

She managed to sleep through the night, but like the previous two mornings she woke up horribly aroused and feeling less than well-rested. Morgan was, of course, always horribly aroused, but it was especially irritating to wake up in this state.

It was a Sunday, which meant working in the domes was optional. Maybe people on the outside were allowed a two-day weekend, but in this prison everyone got at most one day off each week, and even then they were encouraged to work. Someone was clearly determined to squeeze every drop of revenue out of the inmates as possible.

But what was the alternative to working? She could sit in her cell and read about a happy family reunion. She could visit the gym, which would be even more packed today. She could try to talk to the other inmates, who were all as cranky and agitated as she was. She could try to find another book in the library, but they would all be old and boring.

Listening in on Rogers’ conversation over dinner the previous evening, she learned more about the limitations of the prison library than she really wanted to know. There were no digital books because inmates weren’t allowed any sort of computing device.

Physical, paper books were now a luxury, and the prison certainly wasn’t going to buy any more at full price. Instead, they replaced the books that wore out with copies of public domain works, those for which the copyright had expired. They were printed on an old laser printer and bound with a cheap plastic comb. It was inexpensive, but it meant that the library was largely stocked with works that were written before 1928.

In other words, the library was awful, just like everything else.

No matter what she chose to do, she would be bored, and boredom meant nothing to focus on other than her unrelenting need. She could sit in her cell with a boring book, stand in a boring line in the gym, or sit in the domes and be bored doing something she was getting paid for. It was almost nothing, but once again she had no choice but to lower her expectations.

Besides, she still owed Rogers a stamp and an envelope, which would cost at least half a day’s wages at the rate they were paying her. The last thing she wanted was to piss off her cell-mate as she had Amato.

It was another day, time for another round of trying to shower without working herself up too badly and another banana with a side of shit. Morgan had been hoping Amato would come over and apologize, but she sat two tables over. She was obviously still angry.

Morgan wanted to do something, anything. Unfortunately, there was nothing she could do any more than there had been yesterday or would be tomorrow. Instead, she was concerned with paying back Rogers for an envelope and a stamp worth less than two dollars.

This is what her life had become. After breakfast, she headed off to the domes for another day of staring at a screen while the emptiness inside her clawed away at her sanity.

When she was done with work for the day, she stopped by the commissary to buy stamps and envelopes to pay back Rogers. They only sold envelopes in boxes of fifty, and each box was more than the six dollars and seventy-two cents she had in her account. Stamps were sold individually for a dollar twenty-five each. She bought five stamps and hoped that Rogers would accept two of them in exchange for the stamp and envelope.

Stamps were both more valuable, and in higher demand than envelopes, anyway. In county, the jail provided up to two free stamps a week. There was evidently some law or court ruling that granted inmates the right to written communication barring any special security concerns. At least, that’s how Hunt had explained it when Morgan first wrote to Derek.

Since there was no way to earn money in the county jail, the law required that they hand out stamps for free. Given that inmates earned money working in the domes here, the same law didn’t apply. Now she had to pay for a stamp every time she wrote to Derek.

When Morgan returned to her cell, she discovered that she had mail. Today, however, it wasn’t from Derek. To her shock, and considerable unease, there was no return address, but only a single name: “Angela.”

What did that psycho doctor want with her? Did she write to all of her new “patients?”

The doctor had truly perfected the art of the subtle insult.

She had obviously, deliberately been insulting Morgan, and now Angela was rubbing it in. Morgan had little doubt the facts of the letter were accurate, but that wasn’t the point. The point was that Angela seemed to get off on doing her sadistic job and being condescending to the inmates, or as she liked to call them, “patients.” All with that plastic smile on her face.

Here, she was pretending to be friendly, as always, but the subtext was clear: “See, I wasn’t messing with you. Remember when you thought I was messing with you? Would I do that? Nudge, nudge, wink, wink.” That Angela would go to the trouble to write a letter like this to further mess with her head was unbelievable, not to mention galling.

There was only one logical course of action. She would have to call the Doctor’s bluff.

“Hey,” Morgan called over to Rogers. ‘I know I owe you a stamp and an envelope. Stamps cost more than envelopes, so how about I give you two stamps in exchange for two sheets of paper and two envelopes.”

Rogers’ eyebrows shot up. “Huh.” She paused, taking a few seconds to consider the offer. “Sure, you’ve got a deal.” Rogers reached under her bed, pulled out the envelopes and paper, and made the trade for Morgan’s stamps.

Morgan stared at the paper, the envelopes and the three remaining stamps she held. Such simple, mundane things. The envelopes, the paper and two of the remaining stamps were worth more than a day’s pay. Was it really worth spending that much to go toe-to-toe with Angela in her stupid mind-game?

Oh, hell yes.

The key was not to give the bitch the satisfaction of seeing the insult hit home, to keep playing the game. By pretending to take the letter at face value, she could turn that subtle mockery back on the doctor. That was definitely worth the cost, and much more besides.