I look good, I feel… like I might throw up, but still.Ready.
And when my phone pings that the driver is downstairs to pick me up, I take one last long inhale and close my eyes.
This is it.
I’m coming back for you, Diablo.
It’s been two months since my first visit to Alabaster Isle, and by all accounts, it is truly a fascinating place.
I’m mesmerized by it in many ways, despite it being ominous and bustling with obvious despair. The guards are deeply wounded people. That much has become clear over my eight or so visits; the eight or so weekends I’ve spent partying with them, getting high with them…Letting them fuck me raw.
As it turns out, Ari is just as much of a slut as Angel has been over the last four years. Who knew?
The difference is that Angel was fucking to feel something, while Ari is fucking with purpose. And that purpose is getting these guards to droptheirguard and open up. It’s working too.
Officer Soto is partial to fucking in the library for some reason, which gives me more access to the downstairs. The occasional blowjob for Nestor—one of The Ivory’s personal security team—and now I’m allowed to wander pretty much wherever I want, so long as I don’t cross the threshold to the right side.
That’s one thing I still can’t get out of them.
But no matter. I’ll get over there, eventually. In the meantime, I’m more interested in what else is on this island…
Last weekend, I let an officer named Cam Linetti fuck me in his bed. After he came, he got sort of clingy and wanted me to stay for a bit, which I did. And while he was dozing, and I was stroking his hair and asking himcompletely innocentquestions, he told me that the prison, calledAlabaster Pen, has one-hundred and one inmates. Apparently, they’d just taken in number 101 a couple weeks ago.
And according to Cam, the kid’s a big pain in the ass.
“We’re not allowed to touch him for some reason,” he yawned. “Joy’s orders. Which is bullshit because usually the inmates are fair game. Especially in solitary.”
My mind was running through this new information.
The guards fuck the inmates?
Solitary??
“It’s even crazier because the kid has all kinds of contraband. So if no one’s fucking him… where’s he getting all his stuff, ya know?”
I was dying to ask questions, but I didn’t want him to feel like I was grilling him or anything. So I just whispered, “What’d this kid do? To get locked up?”
“He’s a bank robber. Killed the Governor’s niece during a shootout with police…” He slung a large arm over my waist. “Or so they say…”
“You don’t think he did it?” I kept my tone as casual as possible, lulling him into a trance with my hair-fingering.
“All I know is there were a lotta bullets flying around that day,” he mumbled like he was half asleep. “Friend’a mine’s a cop in Crown Heights. He was on duty that day… Commissioner made ‘em all delete their body cam footage…”
And then, he was snoring, while I was reeling.
So the prison housed inmates who’d done horrible things… But maybe some who hadn’t.
I felt like a bloodhound on the scent. I needed to know more about the prison. Who was in there, what it was like.
What Diablo was doing to them in there.
It’s gotten to the point where every moment spent in the city, I’m wishing I was back there. I’m having a hard time concentrating on anything else. Fortunately, I could quit my job thanks to the money I’m making as aparty favor. I even met up with some of the guards one night in Manhattan while they were on their monthly trip off-island, which they call apurge.
Fitting, really.
Yes, they behave like wild animalsonthe island. But when they’re set free, it’s like twenty-four hours of nonstop mayhem.The Ivory’s connections must be working overtime to clean up their messes.
Regardless of how messed up it is, I feel like I can breathe again when I step off the ferry. Maybe it’s because I’m not trapped here like they are, but I wouldn’t want to leave this place.
