I stared up at the magazine cut out of a maximum model that was crudely pasted on the underside

of the top bunk. Her perky breasts shimmied ever so slightly, as Pete tossed and turned above.

She was platinum blonde with legs long enough to wrap around me twice,

or so the camera angle made it seem. I felt a stirring below that yearning for a woman's touch,

which I hadn't felt in six years, three months, and eleven days. I rolled to my side,

stifling it. It was the wrong time to seek out an orgasm, and I knew after the release,

I just spiraled into self-loathing anyway. I focused on a crack in the center block until my

eyelids became heavy. Static pushed the thought of women from my mind as I slipped into sleep.

The smell of cigars and oil flitted through my mind in a memory. My dad's repair shop

the one I was meant to take over before the arrest. A cry echoing from somewhere deeper than

the prison startled me away. My heart thundered in my chest like a rabbit thrashing against its

cage. I rolled over to see Pete crouching low. His face pressed against the bars.

What's going on? I croaked. They're taking Benny! He whispered.

Fuck, really? I pulled myself to the top corner of my mattress,

just enough to peer around the edge of the bars. Two guards wrestled the young Latino onto a gurney,

as a man in a lab coat watched from a distance. He fought against them, but it was futile.

Once the straps were locked in, he screamed once more, pleading for help.

Dozens of eyes watched from dim lit cells, none of which were offering assistance in the slightest.

We knew there was no helping him. We knew what happened next.

His cries were muffled as the doctor jammed a syringe into the base of his neck.

Benny's muscles tensed and pulsed in the fit of a seizure, but then lay still.

The cell block was silent once more, as they wheeled him down the hall and into the catacombs.

...