By six o’clock every night, the hallway leading to the dormitory bathroom is lined with footstools and filth, markers to hold the next man’s spot in the queue. The stools are supplied by the prison for the guys in top bunks. The dirty magazines, or freak books, we purchase ourselves for a different type of assistance.
One after the other, men enter the bathroom. A footstool, a freak book, a roll of toilet tissue and maybe some type of lubricant in hand.
Prison toilets are filthy. First, the seat and everything you could possibly touch must be covered in tissue. Then you need to drag over a large trashcan and place it on top of your stool in the opening to let everyone know the stall is occupied. There are no bathroom doors in prison because everything must be monitored, and blocking yourself in like this is highly illegal. You could be sent directly to the SHU.
When I first arrived in prison, I found this nightly routine strange. There was something unsettling about seemingly heterosexual males openly researching the pages of a freak book, both in clusters and alone.
“I’m going to get my money!”
“I’m going to get my bread!”
Everyone was always getting something, and it always gotten through masturbation. Or was masturbation the get itself? Either way, it made me uncomfortable, so I shied far away.
These days, my freak book of choice is Buttman. I find the lewd photos of female orifices and carnal sexual acts so arousing, but it’s not for beginners. You must first graduate from modest mags with women posing nude, like Playboy or Hustler. Then, darker desires may lead you to Penthouse or Barely Legal, where women engage in common sex acts like oral or missionary. When that gets old, you open the pages of Fox and Cherry. These photos are more graphic, but still glamorous and shot to pique curiosity. That curiosity will take hold, and ultimately you will find your way to the granddaddy of them all.
Buttman shows women wincing in pain while being pounded in perverse positions. The kind of magazine that, if you found it under your teenager’s bed, you would seek counseling for him, stat. That’s Buttman.
Normally on a night like this one, I’m frustrated. Due to my schedule of work and “rehabilitative” classes, it’s hard for me to secure a spot in the hall leading to the bathroom, disrupting my nightly routine. But tonight is different. I’m still thinking about women, but a sweet familiar fragrance is keeping me up. Watermelon and cucumber. My ex-girlfriend Kristy wore it often.
She knew how much I love the smell of blended flavors. I would consume her from across the visitation table, the taste of peach on my lips after a brief closed mouth kiss. The smell of watermelon and cucumber in my nostrils from a brief embrace, the only touching allowed.
She would ask me, “What do I smell like?” and “How do I taste?” One of many sexual games we would play to compensate for the lack of actual sex.
Watermelon & cucumber was my favorite fragrance she wore. But tonight, the aroma belongs to a female officer. As she walks down the aisle, counting each man laying in bed, I can smell her. I can smell her even though she is more than ten feet from the tip of my nose. Before I smelled her, I could hear her. Feet hitting the floor, keys bouncing and jingling on her hips.
Where are you Kristy? No doubt finding comfort in another man’s arms. Comfort I could not give. I don’t blame you. I am not alone. My neighbor turns over from what appears to be a dead sleep. “She smells don’t she?” I agreed she did.
“Would you fuck her?” What he really wants to know is: can I physically achieve an erection strong enough to engage in sexual intercourse with this woman.
“Yes.”
“Would you hit it on the streets?”
He’s really asking if, before my incarceration, I would have found this woman physically attractive enough pursue a sexual relationship with her.
“No”.
From the Pancake 31 makeup on her face and her dated blowout, I’m guessing the guard is around 60, old enough to be my mother. She weighs in at 90 pounds with four pockets full of quarters. I prefer my women with more bass, if you know what I mean. Like Kristy.
There was no specific moment when I decided to join the nightly line with my footstool and freak book. No specific moment when I realized I could sense a woman’s presence. Desire and loneliness have been building, simmering under a lid of restraint. Sure, I could try to seduce the female officer, but that could mean a trip straight into the hole, and not the hole I want.
Or I could contact Kristy and try to rekindle our love. I could explain to her that I never meant to hurt her when I stopped responding to her letters. Try to help her understand how it’s in my best interest to let the part of me that thirsts for a woman’s touch die in order to make it through this. We could start our visit games again, but there is no hope of anything more. The state of Kentucky allows no conjugal visits, no furloughs, not even if we were married.
The possibility of me making love to any woman now is about as remote as the possibility of me ever touching this exact woman on this particular page of Buttman magazine. I wonder if she met me, would she find me attractive? Does any woman? This is my favorite page because it reminds me of her….of….
Just like that its over. I wash my hands of the matter. I don’t know how I feel about it. It’s supposed to be relieving, but I don’t feel relieved. I just feel empty.
“What do you have there?” The female guard materializes like an apparition. Instinctively I’ve hidden the freak book behind my back. “Let me see what you have,” she says as I try to move out of the stall.
Her mood is intense. In her mind, I’ve been hiding in the bathroom doing God knows what for who knows how long and she’s over it. She reaches for her radio to call in backup, and I concede. The last thing I want is a group of Angry Correctional Officers responding to a female in need of assistance in the middle of the deep dark night.
I pull out the freak book. She takes it in her hand. She flips through the pages, searching for contraband in between them. She scoffs at the images and hands me back the magazine.
“Bless you” she says and leaves. I watch her for a bit.
I probably would.
The end.
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